Summit County INDIAN SUMMER

[CATEGORIES: Photography, Travel Photography.]

Indian Summer?  What’s up with that?  First we had Summit County Early Autumn, then Mid-Late Autumn, Farewell to Autumn, and Autumn is Gone.

Rust is the main color of Indian Summer. EXIF Summary: 1/200s f/7.1 ISO100 26mm (35mm eq:26mm). Can you say VIVID? More about that below.

Didn’t I mention we often get pleasant weather during the 1st week or two in October?  Sorry about that.  Not so pleasant late last week, but beautiful blue skies again this week.

Zoom zoom crop.

I couldn’t resist going out and snapping a few more photos.

Why is the fire hydrant so high? We have very tall firemen and they can access it without crouching. 🙂 Something about snowfall too.

This is still PHOTOGRAPHY 101 FOREVER, of course.

[Click on single photos to enlarge.  Click on enlargement to get realllllly big.  Find your way back to this page somehow.  🙂 ]

I worked with Vivid, Landscape, and Standard color modes in the Program setting today. (Tues. 8 Oct.)  The color modes can be accessed via the -i- button or the Menu button.  Ken Rockwell uses:
For Places and Things
I use VIVID with
Sharpening set to 6 and
Saturation set to +3.
(Explained here under the paragraph Picture Control)

Vivid. The Eagle, east of Lake Dillon Marina by the bike path to Keystone.

I set my Vivid settings as he suggested and saved it as an easily accessible Custom Setting.  After shooting I did find this settings to be too unnaturally bright and colorful.  Landscape was more to my liking.  Standard was fairly plain and drab.  The whole thing gets one wondering about eyesight and color.

“Far from taking a picture of the external world, the eye actually transmits information primarily about edges and contrast to the brain. From this limited input, the brain constructs the visual world we experience in all its complexity and detail.”  (Summary from The Visual System-The Eye, here.)

Here Ken Rockwell sets Sharpening only to 5.

Following are examples of Standard, Landscape, and Vivid (with Rockwell’s Vivid settings):

[Click on pictures to enlarge.  Scroll down and click on ‘View full size’ to get realllllly big.  Click again to get even bigger.]

Standard setting, Picture Control. Peaks 1 and 2 above Frisco.

Landscape setting.

Vivid setting, Sharpening 6, Saturation +3.

It makes one wonder what makes a good photo.  Sometimes it’s accurate reproduction of what the eye sees.  (Sometimes that is plain and boring.)  As we see one can alter basic aspects of a photo to make it look more appealing to the eye.

Standard. Taken from the top of Swan Mt. Road at the trailhead parking lot.

Landscape. View is the Ten Mile Range toward Breckenridge.

Vivid.

Some photographers do a variety of post-processing for various added effects.  Australian Leanne Cole had some fascinating photos with a painting texture added.  Quite intriguing. (I’m still in Standard, Landscape, and Vivid mode.)

Landscape. Yet another view of Buffalo Mt. and Red Peak, due north from here.

Vivid. Look at the difference in sky between these two! Vivid is just too unreal. I must tone down the saturation, and perhaps the sharpening, in this custom setting.

Don’t forget the photographer’s assistant and faithful companion.

Obviously I’m a landscape (and dog) guy.  I love people photos, I just haven’t brought myself to sticking a camera in peoples’ faces, yet.  Happy trails.